Entertainment - Friday, November 20, 2009 12:00 - 6 Comments
Yo Dawg, We Heard You Like Bad Lieutenant!
Those who have seen the original Bad Lieutenant may be understandably skeptical of the idea that anyone could truly remake a cinematic experience which features Harvey Keitel’s penis onscreen for twenty minutes. But I aim to assuage your fears with factoids, anecdotes, and perhaps even datums. It’s easy to imagine how this movie could go wrong. It stars Nicholas Cage, so that is reason alone to go see Bad Lieutenant: Port Call of New Orleans, but that’s not the only dubious casting choice made by this new version. I assume you all know Xzibit from the MTV show Pimp My Ride, right? Well he’s in it. I know, I’m as confused as you are, but in any case it means you’ll have to hear people say things like this at the theaters: Yo Dawg, we heard you like Xzibit, so we put an Xzibit in yo movie so you can watch while you watch!
First of all, this movie isn’t being remade by Roland Emmerich or someone like that. No, this is being done by the man I often refer to as “the most badass filmmaker of our time,” Werner Herzog. When this guy makes documentaries, he goes to Antarctica with just a cameraman or hangs out with freaking bears. It’s safe to say that with a history of casting ensembles for his narratives consisting entirely of dwarfs, or the famous mental institution patient Bruno S. (who supposedly needed several hours of screaming before he could do a scene), working with Nicholas Cage should not have been an issue for Herzog. Well…maybe still a little bit of a challenge, honestly.
Entertainment - Friday, November 6, 2009 12:00 - 1 Comment
Never Pay for a Movie Again
Seeing wide-release movies in Manhattan is generally a degrading and frustrating experience. Paying $12.50 to pile into the Regal Union Square, squeeze into a cramped seat, and end up with a lap covered with grease-splattered Cheezy Pretzel Bitez (I’ve been a victim. The shlemiel tripped. Nary an apology) is less than ideal. We’ve rounded up the best ways to score free passes to advance movie screenings in NYC—it’ll ease the multiplex pain, you’ll be ahead of the movie curve, and your wallet will thank you.
New York Observer: Free Reels
The Observer provides an ideal effort-to-free-stuff ratio: as soon as you sign up for the mailing list, you’re automatically notified for each upcoming screening. Fire off an email request for tickets, and you’re good to go. Free Reels caters more toward the indie-film crowd. Expect films like Away We Go, Whatever Works, or the latest Michael Moore flick.
NYCFreeMovieScreenings
Avoid signing up for the weekly newsletter—the real way for get passes is constant checking of their listings, which are updated pretty often. Films tend to be on the more mainstream/lowbrow side—I’ve snagged passes for Zombieland, Paranormal Activity, and The Fourth Kind, to name a few.
Entertainment - Friday, October 23, 2009 7:36 - 2 Comments
We’ve Sawed it All Before
If it’s Halloween, it must be Saw. Really? Must it? Couldn’t it be something else every once in awhile? Not this year, apparently. If you’re an attentive pedestrian, you’ve probably already noticed all the neat little posters making the roman numeral VI out of a soon-to-be mutilated prisoner, and if you don’t know what that means, then you’ve probably never seen a Saw poster in your life. On Friday (which is NOT Halloween) we’re all being treated to the highly anticipated sixth entry in the Academy Award winning Saw series. I’m pretty sure we’ve gotten to that point where even the 13-year-old Saw Fanboys have admitted the series is just about dead (even though Saw 7 in 3D has already been greenlit), but why should we just get rid of such a groundbreaking franchise?
So hello, NYU. I want to play a little game. It’s high time for your innovative minds to rally together and find a use for Saw. Some experts have thought of taking the crossover route, but why not go all the way with this sick perversion of a Rube Goldberg project and make it into a reality show hosted in the dark dungeons of Bobst? I don’t know about you guys, but I’d be pretty psyched to watch America’s Next Top Horrible Mutilation.
On Campus - Friday, September 25, 2009 11:27 - 6 Comments
How to Get Deep Throat in Bobst
The Avery Fisher center in Bobst Library has 68,000 music and spoken word recordings, 24,000 video recordings, and one hot, hot piece of recorded sex. That’s right: the Fisher’s got a copy of “Deep Throat” (subtitle: “How far does a girl have to go to untangle her tingle?”).
How far indeed.
I’m a little surprised as to why this audio-visual gem isn’t kept in the “Treasures of New York University” shadow gallery, but I guess it’s reassuring enough that it’s currently “On Shelf” just one floor up.
Kind of gives new meaning to those personal viewing stations, doesn’t it? I guess we’re getting our money’s worth (by the way, the call number is DVD 11344 for all of you academically curious readers). But seriously, does anyone think that this is a worthy addition to the collection of knowledge at our great University? Personally, I think it makes our Private Institution in the Public Service seem a bit more like a Public one in the Private Service.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Photo by Flickr user Uncinefilo used and modified under a Creative Commons license.
Entertainment, Featured - Wednesday, September 16, 2009 13:30 - 5 Comments
Fall 2009 Movie Preview
Summer is almost officially over, and with it, so are most of the blockbuster movies guaranteed to melt our brains with mindless montages of explosions and boobs. But don’t completely give up hope – summer still has one last gasp in it. Make sure you check out these awesome fall movies for one last round of laughs before Hollywood gets down to Serious Business for awards season.
Entertainment - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 9:31 - 10 Comments
“Watchmen” Is A Pre-Paid Ticket To Hell, and For Twelve Year-Olds
As Watchmen approaches, NYU screenwriting majors put their brains in jars to buy advanced tickets for the experience (and plan hour-long pilgrimages to Sheepshead Bay for that experience to be IMAX’d). But I can only come to one conclusion about the comic series this over-hyped blockbuster was based on: I didn’t like it.
I thought I had been a fan of the comic for years, but if I feel nothing but loathing for what is essentially a panel-to-panel filmed rendering, maybe I actually just never liked the book in the first place, and my 12-year old mind was screwed up from all that mall candy. Either that, or one other simple explanation comes to mind: comic book panels aren’t fucking storyboards.
Even though they’ve been trickling down like acid rain for months, the latest clip of Watchmen (above) is the longest, and the one most fans have gotten excited about. It is 90% faithful to the comic book and unless you consider “cool” to be a genre, also 90% unwatchable. Continue…
Entertainment - Tuesday, February 10, 2009 19:06 - 5 Comments
“Inglourious Basterds” May Already Suck
So they just released a couple seconds of the newest film from film-school-hater and overall dick, Quentin Tarantino. The film, “Inglourious Basterds,” tells the story of a small American military outfit that functions for the sole purpose of terrorizing Nazis by, as the clip explains, scalping them (I suppose in some strange reference to Native Americans fighting white oppression in this country’s past). The catch? All of the soldiers are Jews!
Well, except for Brad Pitt, who plays a guy from the South who is supposed to be the baddest mother-effer in the entire American military.
Now, I love Tarantino, his cockiness, his films, and the consistent hyperbole every one of his films elicits, but is it just me, or does this film seem to have missed the mark, at least from what I can tell from the couple of seconds Entertainment Tonight hands out? Continue…
Entertainment - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 11:32 - 3 Comments
A “Blart” On Our Nation
After one week, you can call it a freak accident. Two weeks? Whatever, it’s January. But after three weeks and with ticket sales steadily shooting toward the 100 million dollar mark, there’s no excuse left. The obese and bluntly mustachioed title character of the third-rate comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop is the biggest authority figure after Barack Obama that America has collectively chosen to lead them (or at least their box office sales charts).
It seems fair to remark on the similarities between the two do-gooders, and the significance of a pasty and useless Blart essentially becoming activated as a big hero in the movie only after he getting colorized accidentally in the mall spray-tan booth. He also changes his dopey white uniform to a casual and sexy black one… finally getting down to business and really dealing with the dangerous mall terrorists—although that story turn could be frighteningly interpreted to favor Bush’s administration in some circles.
Still, Obama’s shedding of his suit jacket in the formerly dress-coded Oval Office definitely emboldened his existing action hero image to scores of Obama-as-Superman t-shirt owners this week. As such, Mall Cop seems to be an extension of our national high (it’s no coincidence the word hero is in the word heroin) weeks past the inauguration. Even for those like me, who have to justify their purchase by paying the child’s price and also sneaking into another movie afterward. Continue…
Entertainment - Tuesday, December 9, 2008 10:07 - 8 Comments
‘Empire’ Magazine Supports Hollywood Coupon-Clipping
Even mega-businesses like the film world are feeling the global belt-tightening as the world economy sinks deeper into recession. Luckily, Empire comes to Hollywood’s rescue in a feature they call “Credit Crunch Casting” in which pricey movie stars are paired with their low-budget doppelgangers—or at least passable knock-offs.
For instance, if your flick is begging for a Christian Bale-type, why not settle for 300’s buff German Michael Fassbender? Not a bad idea, Empire. Continue…
Entertainment - Friday, December 5, 2008 13:21 - 0 Comments
Ebert Skewers Ben Stein’s ‘From Darwin to Hitler’… er, ‘Expelled’
Some movies don’t deserve real reviews, so they get blog posts. Roger Ebert, who was accused of refusing to review Ben Stein’s creationist “documentary” Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, took to his Sun-Times “journal” (he means blog) to tear the thing to shreds.
Stein, who first made his name as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford before a minor television and movie career, hosts Expelled, which attempts to promote the theory of intelligent design and argues that, according to Ebert, “evolutionists cannot tolerate dissent.” LOL, says Ebert. Continue…
